EP30 | Discovering Your Most Important Role

Do you ever look back and think who am I? What is my role in life? This is something that Zach has contemplated for a long time and in this very personal episode of The Create Purpose Podcast, he reveals how he found his resonance. He provides you with 4 actionable steps that you can use to find your purpose and discover your most important role. 

 Episode resources:

• Create Purpose Website 

• Join Zach’s Mastermind
• Book: Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Is by Steven Pressfield
• Person: Thomas Merton - American Monk
• Person: Tony Robbins
  

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Zach Arend: You know, if I were to get back in touch with who I am, my unique greatness is I guide you to uncover what you need so that you can be in resonance by pressing pause and getting out of your head.

Welcome back, or welcome to the Create Purpose Podcast today. We're gonna dive right into it. I have had something on my mind now for several months, been really wrestling with this question, you know, around who am I? What is it that I really do as a coach? You know, am I a leadership coach? Am I a business coach? Gosh.

You know, and, and this question, you know, you may or may not even be in the world of coaching. It's personal to me because I don't know about you, but just, have you ever wrestled with your role? What is the role that you're playing in your business? What is my role supposed to be? What do I really want it to be?

Am I in alignment with, with who I am? You know that question. Am I in alignment with who I am is an important question, because whenever you feel say things, see things experience. That aren't in alignment. You just kind of feel like something's not quite right. It's still not quite right. And that's how I've been feeling.

You know, there's something still not quite right. When I refer to myself as a business coach or a leadership coach, you know? Cause when you think about a business coach, you know, I don't know. I look out there and a lot of the business coaches, I mean, they, they come into your business and they, they have all the answers.

They're like, Hey, this is the right way to do that. This is, this is how you should be doing that. Oh, you're doing that wrong. You need to do it this way. And I'm like, that is the last thing I do. And. Honestly, I find that most people don't want that, you know, and I think it, it actually gets in the way of their true greatness.

So I'm like, God, I'm not a business coach, even though I know maybe I'm, I'm referred to, by some of my clients as a business coach, it just never lands right. For me and leadership coach. And I'm sorry, but the word leadership. I don't know about you, but what comes up when you think about leadership in today's world?

We live in my mentor and coach. He came to me the other day and he, he basically said leadership is bankrupt. The word leadership is bankrupt. We don't have a lot of great examples of leadership in the world today. Every time. I refer to myself as leadership coach. I, I think of this corporate environment, you know, this is how you're supposed to lead.

Here's the 21 laws to being a great leader and, and do this, not that. And again, I'm like, no, that's not who I am. That's not what I do. And again, maybe you wrestle with this in your own world, you know, your role. And I don't know, I people see me as this, but I, that still doesn't quite feel like who I really desire to be.

And, and I've gone on this journey now. I was, I said earlier, I've been wrestling for three months. Maybe I've been wrestling it with most of my life, honestly, but I had a couple Eureka moments if you will. Some aha moments. And it all kind of came about from working with some of my coaches. And, but it wasn't just those conversations.

It was, it was kind of the, the crescendo of all of the work I've been doing over the last several months and even years. and I just wanted to share with you, because if this is an important question to you about, you know, owning your role, like, what is the role that you ultimately wanna be fulfilling in your life, in your business?

In a way the titles do matter, not from an egotistical way, but when you're obsessed with something and when you know you want to be the best at it, every little detail kind of matters. It does for me. And so I've wrestled with this, you know, how do I wanna refer to myself? And I went on this journey. I wanted to share this with you, because I think you are on your own journey as well, trying to wrestle with what are you, what are you on this planet to do?

What's the impact you're really wanting to make. And sometimes these finer details help turn on some lights for us. So maybe that will be the case for you. I think it will be by the end of this episode. And so I'm, I'm on this journey and I, one of the steps that I took that shined a light for me on, oh my God.

I realized I was the last one to see this, but it was so true. I drafted up an email and I have sent it to probably 15 of the people closest to me in my life. Not necessarily closest intimately, but like. I'm either working with them, I'm bumping into them on a regular basis. There were some of my clients, some of my peers, some of, some of my coach, like I tried to grab different people and people that knew me in different phases of my life.

Do you know what I mean? By different phases of our life, we never really stayed the same. Do we, you know, who, who you were, who I was 5, 7, 8 years ago, has. Has transformed. It's very different and I'm, I'm assuming it'd be for you, but I wanted to try to pick apart what were those common threads that have been with me for a very long time?

And so I, I asked people, I literally asked them, I told them, I'm doing this exercise. I'm trying to just lean into more of who I am and my strengths. And I asked them the question, you know, what do you see in me? What if you were to identify my unique, greatnesses my unique greatness. Those skills and abilities, those superior skills and abilities that you see and you in a way are kind of in awe by like, you're just impressed by them.

You know, first of all, it was hard for me to ask that question, cuz I'm a humble guy and you know, it it's felt awkward asking for people to share the positives, like, Hey, where do you see me shining and excelling? And the, the responses started rolling. And I was hearing things, such subtle things. Like you have a way of creating an environment where people are able to trust one another and be open and honest and really share and create a safe place for people to open up.

And you have the courage to enter the danger. Like, like I'm shocked by some of the things you say and ask. But it's what we needed to hear. And one guy told me that I, I have a way of telling people to go to hell and they look forward to the journey. I don't know really what that means, but what I think what he was telling me was I, I'm not afraid to, to say the hard things that make people uncomfortable, but knowing that it was through that discomfort and through pain that people actually change until we actually feel that discomfort, to the extent it becomes painful enough, we never change.

And we stay where we. and I'm hearing all this feedback and just how I have this ability to, to ask questions and be inquisitive. And, and then somebody from that, I knew like five, seven years ago just shared, like, I've been impressed by how you can grow and overcome obstacles and like reinvent yourself.

And, and I'm hearing all this feedback and I started seeing themes and then I, I, you know, and it started to shine a light. And here's what happened when I started reading those comments. I I've noticed myself telling myself a story about, yeah, well, I mean, I didn't have any other choice or, you know, I'm, I don't know.

It's, it's, I'm just asking questions. Like I would diminish, I would diminish what they were saying was my superior skills. I would, I would diminish it and I wanna pause really quick. How often do you actually receive the praise that you get from others and how often do you diminish it? You know, Thank you, but, and there's always that, but, but, you know, I got luckier, but you know, I, I, I did some training, you know, I, but you know, it it's because I have a great team, you know, we, we deflect those things from us and it, it diminishes us in a way, and it doesn't allow us to get in touch with who we are.

So that's what I noticed, but then I'm like, no, I, I need to receive this. That's why I did this exercise. I'm receiving this. And. I, I go onto the next exercise. And that was just a series of, I, I, I got into a journaling heaven. I just started writing about all the moments of my life that I just look back on and I'm like, man, I was alive.

That really lit me up. I felt like I just, those moments, those defining moments, those most memorable moments in my life. And I started looking for, what are the characteristics? What was I doing? What position was I playing? What wa what, what were the circumstances that led me to feeling that way? Again, light bulbs started going off like, oh my God, I love being at the bottom of a mountain.

I love having my back against the wall. I love doing hard things and feeling and experiencing my own growth. I love being in situations that are uncertain. I would've never thought I would've said that, but it's like, whoa. When I look at it, my life, that was actually the moments that lit me up. And then the next exercise I go and, you know, I do the strength finders and I do the Colby and I do the, all the things, the disk.

And I started taking the input from that and I'm like, oh, and I, it started to complete the picture for me. And then one of the most powerful exercises I did was I got clear on what my values. Your values. I like to think of your values as your character traits. It's who you are when your back's against the wall.

It's, it's who you are when you, when you feel the most joy and fulfillment and meaning in your life, I'm willing to bet when you're feeling those emotions, you are in alignment with your values, values, like growth values, like faith values, like family. Or curiosity or mindfulness or courage impact abundance, gratitude.

These are values that when we lean into them and we express them into the world and in what we do, it's like, it turns, I was gonna say, it turns us on it. It is, let's like somebody flipped a switch and like we're, we're bringing our best selves to the game. And that's what I want for myself. And that's what I want for you.

So values. Our very important discussion, you know, what are your values? And are you in alignment with those values? Are you living into them? And then it came to just, just not that long ago, probably several weeks ago, I'm talking to one of my coaches and I'm just sharing 'em this journey. Just kind of like what I'm doing right now with you.

And they said this and they said, you know, Sounds like you're a residence coach. I'm like, well, resonance coach. I like that word. I, I talk about residence all the time. Right? When you think about a tuning fork, when you're in re residence, there's harmony, things are just flowing. It's almost effortless opportunities.

Just kind of flow to you and you're, and you're more than enough. And it's just, everything is just happening with ease in resonance. There's a lightness compared to dissonance, right? When there's tension and there's grit and there's, you know, grinding of the teeth and, you know, you're just tense and, and everything.

It's just exhausting, you know, when you're feeling dissonance in your body and how you feel, right. You, you feel it in your forehead and in your chest and your shoulders. And so I'm like, yes, residents. I help clients get back into resonance with who they are and the more I explored it, I'm like what I do.

You know, if I were to get back in touch with who I am, my unique greatness is I guide you to uncover what you need so that you can be in resonance by pressing pause and getting out of your. Because as Tony Robbins says, when you're in your head, you're dead. That's so true. You seldom can think your way out of problems.

We think that's the truth, but that is not the case. We're not as smart as we think we are. We need to learn to trust our guts and trust our instincts and how I've been able to do that is a unique blend of business and leadership tools, as well as helping you become more. Self-aware ultimately though, to help you be the leader that you know, that you are.

That is the work I do. And when I heard resonance coach, there was resonance for me. I'm like that, that is exactly what I do. And that clarity has been so reassuring for me just to have that clarity, clarity is so important. And again, I wanna bring this back to you cause I'm sharing this not to, not to like, I'm just sharing my experience, but my hope is it's putting you in your own life.

and I want you to think about what do you want your role, your position in life to be if, if you're in your business, are you in resonance on a daily basis in who, you know, in toward who you know that you are, or do you feel a lot of dissonance things? There's stuff that you're tolerating and it feels more exhausting and draining than it does enjoy enjoyable and refueling re-energizing and effort.

my goal is what I want for you is to get back into residence. And I'm suggesting that you take a similar journey that I went on, start to ask the deeper questions. Who am I, what do I want to, what's the impact I wanna be making, you know, what's the position I wanna play. And so here, I've got four marching orders for you.

Four things that you can start thinking about. And I think these four points that I'm gonna make will help you get back into resonance with who you are. Because here's the thing. When you start getting clear on that, you can't unsee this stuff and all, you can't look away any longer and you're gonna move in that direction.

So, number one, there's this one of my favorite quotes, Thomas Merton, I need to figure out, I need to go research who this guy is, cuz I like some of his quotes, but I don't really know who he is. I don't you ever have that, but this is my favorite quote. He says, what you fear is an indication of what you seek.

So if what you fear is an indication of what you seek. This is a great question to wrestle with, check in with yourself right now. What is it that you feel like you might be the most afraid of that you're avoiding? Cause oftentimes what we're avoiding there's, there's a fear under the surface. What are you afraid of?

What are you avoiding? That's that's some great information that's telling you something because that's actually an indicator of what you seek. What might that mean to you? So I want you to think about that. That's number one, number two. I want you to really start contemplating who you are, your true character, I'm in a mastermind.

And one of the questions we've been wrestling with a lot this year is, is character created and made, or is character revealed? Like, are we born with character or, or is it, is it, is it something we develop? For sure. The answer's probably both in some regard, but I bet 80% of it is revealed. So your character is really your values in action under stress.

So when you're back is against the wall, who are you and who are you responding as your best self? Not responding out of fear because when we're responding out of fear, we're not in alignment with our values. What I'm suggesting is if you were to. Have your back against the wall, but then choose to be your best and still stand in faith and courage.

Who would you be being, what values would you be leading with in applying and making? Non-negotiables making that unbreakable standard in the decisions that you make, like start to explore. What are your values what's important to you? Because those values are what they're screaming to be expressed. And everything that you do in your life and in your business and the more you can express those values, the more you're gonna feel alive at heart.

We'll say, I don't know, alive at heart. That's I've heard that. So I like that idea, like just feeling like the, the fire is lit and it's burning bright, then that's what I want for you. So no, and, and start to explore your true character. Who are you when you're at your best, but also. Life demands that you are your best.

So that's number two. Number three is what if you were just to be who you are. And maybe that sounds very meta. My wife gets frustrated with me cuz I can be very meta, but being we so.

Focus on the goals and the outcomes. And we strive when we work our behinds to, to get there. Maybe you're in your business, but you wanna make a pivot and you wanna start living into a different role or position that you wanna play, but you're not there yet. And so you sit in this tension of not feeling like you're there yet.

That's a broken strategy. What I'm suggesting is you need to be. Who you desire to be, be who you are. So if you, so if you feel the urge to be more out front sharing a message, maybe it's to be a writer or to do courses or training or coaching or whatever. Are you being that person in your daily interactions?

Because if you think about it, thinking about your values and, and who you want to be, for example, I wanna be a residence coach that resonates with me. I wanna draw people back to their unique greatness. So I could be like, well, until I'm on a big stage and have a big audience, can I do that? And I'll always feel like I'm not there.

Or I could be like, no, I'm gonna start being that now. So in my interactions with people, with my own family, with my kids, my friends, that is who I am. I be that as much as I possibly can. And when you do that, Life just has a way of a attracting more of that into your life. And so are you being who you are, who, you know, deep down you're being called to be, are you being that it's not a matter of doing we're already doing too much.

I'm I'm suggesting just, just let go of the doing and just show up being who you are and let that be enough, be unapologetic about it. And then number four. This is a line for my favorite author, Steven Presfield. And I'm not like getting a commission from this or anything. I just love this guy. And I love what he has to say.

He has a new book coming out called put your ass where your heart wants to be, put your ass where your heart wants to be. And that's what I wanna leave you with is this idea. Getting back into alignment, getting back into resonance with who you are, your unique greatness demands that you put your ass, where you want to be.

Are you doing that? And what would have to change? What would be different if you were to starting now? Just to choose that? You know what? I don't know. I'm I fear is coming up. Maybe I'm afraid. Maybe there's self doubt. Maybe there's the inter internal dialogue, gremlin, inner critic telling me, can you really do this?

Who do you think you are? well, you can let that chatter continue while you just put your ass where you want your heart wants to be. And that's what I wanted to leave you with is just start being that person and the way you know, you're being, it is through action through putting your ass where your heart wants to be.

That's what I have for you today. This one was a very personal episode where I kind of pulled back and just shared a little bit of what I'm going through. My hope is though that it puts you in your own life. What I want for you deeply is to be the leader that you know, that you are get back into resonance with the reason you started your business in the first place, because you don't need a business coach.

You don't need a consultant coming in to tell you the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do, or a leadership coach that tells you here's what a great leader should do in this situation. You don't need that. You don't and deep down, you know it, what you really need is to learn to trust. Who you are, trust your instincts and let that be enough, cuz that's when you get to fully come out and play and it, it starts with, are you being who you are?

You know, there's this quote that I heard, I don't know who, but it, it says each moment describes who you are and gives you an opportunity to decide if that's who you want to be. That's cool. That's a cool life being responsible. And putting your ass where your heart wants to be and just being that unapologetically.

So thanks for listening. And I would love to hear from you on Instagram, on at Zach dot Arend, you can DM me. What do you have been enjoying from these podcasts? What, what's a topic that you're wrestling with right now? because I'm, I'm always looking for inspiration, some things that I can go deeper into.

So I wanna hear from you. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode of the Create Purpose Podcast. Hopefully you really enjoyed this podcast episode. And my hope is you found it. Really inspirational. And also most importantly, I hope you took away some practical things that you can start to do and apply in your own life.

So finally, I have one small favor to ask of you before you go, wherever you get your podcast, whether that's apple music or Spotify. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review. Love to hear your thoughts. Come find us on social media, share it on social media. It just really helps us get the word out, helps us grow our audience.

So please do that. Thanks to my team, Ashley Bolden, who handles all the admin and Chris Skipper who handles all the music and editing of this podcast for more information on the. Purpose podcast, you can go to www.createpurpose.net, and you can also follow me on Instagram @zach.arend. Please drop me a comment.

Reach out, drop me a DM. I'd love to hear from you and love to hear what's you're taking away from these conversations. What would you like to hear more of. Do you have any guests that you would love to see? Come on the show. And I'm always looking for great people to talk to people with great stories that can inspire you.

And so if you know of anybody send, 'em my way, love to hear from you. I'm your host, Zach Arend and I'll see you in the next episode of the Create Purpose Podcast bye for now.